The Recombobulation Area is a 21-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
This article was part of the extended column, “8 Takeaways from the 2026 Election in Wisconsin,” which was first available for paid subscribers on Nov. 7.
One of the big takeaways from the election nationally was how much of a shift there was among Hispanic voters from 2024. This helped drive James Talarico’s victory in Texas, where about 70% of Hispanic voters backed the Democrat. In the House, Democrats won every district that touches the U.S. -Mexico border.
While Wisconsin’s Hispanic population is not as large as some of the states that saw some of these especially big shifts, it is now the largest minority group in Wisconsin, making up nearly 9% of the population.
As John D. Johnson notes here, the three Assembly districts with the most Latino voters were the ones to swing most from Trump to Crowley. Milwaukee’s majority-Hispanic south side is where some of the biggest swings occurred, particularly in the 8th and 9th districts, which swung for Crowley by 26 points. In the 8th, Democrat Ismael Luna defeated incumbent Sylvia Ortiz-Velez in the August primary, and went on to win by a more than 71% margin. In the 9th, Democratic incumbent Priscilla Prado won by a 61% margin — a 20-point improvement from just two years ago.
Notably, on the statewide ballot was JoCasta Zamarripa, a former state representative and current Milwaukee alderperson who represents the city’s south side, running for Secretary of State. Zamarripa’s campaign tells The Recombobulation Area that she put significant resources toward GOTV efforts among Latino voters, including $150,000 on voter outreach statewide.
In voter trend data from The New York Times, Hispanic voters in Wisconsin saw the biggest shifts statewide, toward Democrats by 32 points, with Crowley winning more than 73% of this group of voters. Any durable coalition for Democrats moving forward needs to include a strong share of Hispanic voters.
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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